In prayer, Franklin Graham sees rain at inauguration as good omen for Trump
Speaking at President Donald Trump’s inauguration Friday, North Carolina-based evangelist Franklin Graham said his prayer was that God would bless the new president, his family, his administration “and may He bless America.”
But Graham began with an ad lib: “Mr. President, in the Bible, rain is a sign of God’s blessing. And it started to rain, Mr. President, when you came to the platform (for his inaugural speech).”
Graham, who heads the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, was one of six clergy members – five of them Christian – who offered prayers or read from Scripture during the inauguration for Trump, who is Presbyterian.
Graham chose to read a passage from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, chapter 2, which calls for prayers for all people, including “kings and for all those in authority, that we may live peacefully quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/religion/article127687134.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
than trying to curry favor with right wing power brokers, he would know this is not true.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.biblegateway.com/passage/%3Fsearch%3DMatthew%2B5%253A45%26version%3DKJV%26interface%3Damp?client=ms-android-att-us
"Matthew 5:45King James Version (KJV)
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
King James Version (KJV)"
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He would do well to read the rest of the fifth chapter of Matthew, and encourage his fellow con artist Trump to do the same. I think the article in the OP missed the big story in Graham the Lesser's remarks, however. Despite bring a professing Christian myself, I was appalled and offended that Graham used a quote from Paul's letter to Timothy, only partially cited above, which reads:
"I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time" (1 Timothy 2:16).
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For someone to stand on the platform at the inauguration of a U.S. president and announce that "there is...one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus" is shocking, and beyond inappropriate. I am puzzled by the lack of attention to this theocratic salvo in the media, who seemed too preoccupied with cooing over Melania's powder blue Ralph Lauren ensemble to notice this grotesque intrusion into the separation of church and state.
